"Not 'arf I Don't !"

Agatha Christie's Death in the Clouds was first published in 1935.

In chapter 16 the Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot tries to persuade Norman Gale, a dentist by profession, to send a written message to a certain person implying that he, Norman, has knowledge of some shady deal and may choose to make it known.

Gale, an honourable man, demurs. He fears he might be accused of blackmail. Poirot assures him that he himself, well respected at Scotland Yard, will take the blame if anything goes wrong.

"Norman surrendered with a sigh. ' All right. I'll do it. But I don't half like it.' "

To us today it would seem that Christie has misunderstood the idiom don't half. To us, 'Not 'arf'' and 'don't 'arf' mean 'wholly'. Christie seems to want it to mean 'not as much as half' - that is, by implication, 'not at all'.

So either the idiom could once, early in the last century, be used to imply 'not at all'; or else Agatha was confused about the significant 'meiosis*' of the cockney phrase 'not 'arf'.

Since Agatha was a 'gentlewoman' writing in a period of strong class differences, I think it is just possible that she has got her slang muddled. But then, her character Norman Gale was himself a dentist, a professional. Perhaps Gale was the one who was muddled. Or as we might prefer to say now, 'idiomatically challenged'.

* meiosis has been defined as 'understatement so as to intensify'. Compare "I'm not feeling too well." Meion (with a long o) is Greek for less. The Greek suffix '-osis' denotes a condition or state (eg halitosis = breath condition); so meiosis = (literally) a state of lessening.

Not 'arf I Don't